2.12.2023 COP28: The last chance to avoid global genocide.

 ~o~

 Saturday 2nd 28F-2C. Up at 5am. Another load of laundry has gone into the machine. 

 6.00 62F/17C in the room but it feels cold. 34F/1C in the greenhouse. Not much new snow but more, scattered snow showers are forecast. I can't see the strip I cleared outside yesterday.  Sunshine is possible. 

 Breakfast with tea instead of coffee. Which I drank at 5am instead. Two cups of coffee would be breaking my usual habits and we can't have that. Who knows where that might lead? Anarchy! 🙄

 The latest organic oats taste different again. I try other brands when I can't reach stockists of my usual favourite. I like coarse flakes but these are smaller than average. They also glue themselves together more readily unless saturated with milk. I have nightmares about being put in a home. Then not getting my morning bowl of oats with organic milk. The amount of milk has to be just right. 

 I started eating oats in my youth. When a hospital specialist advised it for my constant stomach problems. Back then I would have a huge mound of mixed, commercial "label" breakfasts. With the equivalent of a tablespoon of sugar added. I would be starving within an hour!

 Too much salt, sugar and poor fibre content he said. On his advice I changed to oats and bran. The bran was to add fibre to the oats but eventually I gave that up. A few, organic raisins lifts the rather bland taste of the plain oats.

 6.45 I had better light the stove. These images are of yesterday's, half hour, marathon, washing up session. There was not one clean cup, bowl, dinner or tea plate, saucepan, frying pan, nor any cutlery items left. One just can't get the staff these days! 

 My wife always did the washing up. I wasn't allowed to. When it suddenly became my sole responsibility, I had to wear rubber gloves. My hands shrivelled and cracked painfully. The water felt as if it was boiling hot. Finding decent gloves in a suitable size became a nightmare. So eventually I had to toughen up and go au naturel.

 7.00 I can feel the warmth of the stove on my left cheek now. As I sit at the computer scribbling complete nonsense as usual. Until it is light enough to go for a walk. Somewhere around 8.30 at this time of year. Depending on cloud cover.

 Whenever I feel that my diary is becoming pointless I just have to visit YouTube. To see what absolute dross the multi-millionaire influencers manage to dredge up. There was once the age of the dinosaurs. This is the age of the attention seekers and their gullible, mouth-breathing followers. 

 I went back to bed to catch up on my early rise.

 9.30 The temperature had dropped to 20F/-7C by the time I returned. It felt much colder than my recent walks. Though I was warmly dressed in one of my remaining, recycled, down jackets. My split finger, GripGrab mitts struggling to keep my hands warm as I stopped repeatedly to take pictures with my phone. 

 Half the sky was clear but the sun couldn't break through the colourful arc of clouds to the east. I looped around a field via the spray tracks. With the snow crunching under my feet. There were animal prints everywhere. Mostly cats. With a couple of hares sitting starkly black on the snow of the steep field leading up to the forest. 

 10.30 20F/-7C. Sunshine. Google Photos is refusing to upload today's pictures. Except for the picture of the MM covered in snow. That was my first image today. Have I suffered cold hands for nothing? I checked and the images are all visible on the phone's photo album.

 11.30 26F/-3C. Continuous sunshine. The greenhouse has crawled up to 42F/6C bu there is still lots of refrozen ice on the roof and curved shoulders. I'll leave it to melt on its own. As scraping with a squeegee is unlikely to help speed things. The sun hasn't come face onto the greenhouse yet. I am making rapid progress on the laundry backlog. Synthetics dry quickly in the room. Currently 66F/19C after several hours of the stove burning. 

 7.30 Dinner was mackerel on toast. No pictures today. The phone won't send them to the PC. Problem solved.

 

 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67513901

~o~